Norm Dicks

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. I want to commend the gentlewoman for her leadership on this issue and tell her that we will work very closely with her. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Skaggs].

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, if the gentlewoman will continue to yield, I would also like to insert in the Record a letter that the chairman and I sent to Mr. Deutch. I do not believe that was mentioned by the chairman. I would also like to put in the Record a response that was given to us from John Moseman, director of congressional affairs, and also another letter that was sent to me by Mr. Deutch after I had talked to him on the phone about this issue on, late in August, just to complete the Record. The letters are as follows: Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, DC, September 4, 1996. Hon. Norman D. Dicks, Ranking Democratic Member, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Mr. Dicks: As you and I discussed in a 4 September conversation, allegations have been made by the San Jose Mercury News that the Central Intelligence Agency engaged in drug trafficking to support the Contras in their effort to overthrow the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Specifically, the Mercury News alleges or infers a relationship between the Agency and drug smuggling activities in which two Nicaraguan nationals, Oscar Danilo Blandon Reyes and Juan Norwin Meneses Cantarero, were engaged. I consider these to be extremely serious charges. The review I ordered of Agency files, including a study conducted in 1988 and briefed to both intelligence committees, supports the conclusion that the Agency neither participated in nor condoned drug trafficking by Contra forces. In particular, the Agency never had any relationship with either Blandon or Meneses, nor did it ever seek to have information concerning either of them withheld in the trial of Rick Ross. Although I believe there is no substance to the allegations in the Mercury News, I do wish to dispel any lingering public doubt on the subject. Accordingly, I have asked the Agency's Inspector General to conduct an immediate and thorough internal review of all the allegations concerning the Agency published by the newspaper. I will write again to report to you when the Inspector General's review is completed. I have asked that the review be finished within 60 days. An similar letter is being sent to Chairman Combest. Sincerely, John Deutch, Director of Central Intelligence.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to commend the gentlewoman for her attention to this very serious matter. As someone who has a McClatchy paper in my district, when I read these two articles, I was stunned by them. Of course, the conclusions drawn there are done by inference. As you know, the Central Intelligence Agency denies complicity in this series of events. Having said that, first of all, I think I wanted to give my assurance, and certainly I would like to have the chairman have an opportunity to comment here as well, my assurance that our committee will look into this completely and fully because we take it as a very serious matter. I called Director Deutch when I read the articles and told him that I thought this was going to be a very serious problem and that he had to personally get involved and find out as much about this as he could. The Director has done that, and he has asked that. He has also stated that he does not believe that the CIA was involved, but he has asked the independent inspector general to completely look at this matter. That is underway. We are going to have an investigation over the next 60 days. Then there will be a report to the committee, which we will then look at, as we conduct our own investigation going back and looking at events surrounding the Iran-Contra affair and previous reports that were done on this issue, because this is not the first time that this issue has come up. Also, I am told that the Attorney General has directed the Justice Department's inspector general to also conduct an investigation into the Department's knowledge and involvement, if any, in this issue, the involvement of the CIA in this issue. So we have the Justice Department looking at this; General McCaffrey has also said, the drug czar for the President, that they are looking at it; and the Director of the CIA and this committee and our counterpart in the Senate I assume will look at it as well. I hope for the sake of the American people that we are able to investigate this matter. I hope and pray that the story is not accurate. I think it would be a devastating blow to the intelligence community, to the country, and to thousands of Americans who have been affected by crack cocaine if this, in fact, proved to be true or if there was even knowledge about it and no action was taken at the time. I will just give the gentlewoman, the only pledge I can give you is that the minority member of the Select Committee on Intelligence, the gentleman from California [Mr. Dixon], has been very much involved. We will vigorously pursue this to try to find the truth and to present it to the American people. Maybe the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Combest] would like to enter into this at this juncture.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Waters].

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the gentleman from New Mexico [Mr. Richardson] for his extraordinary service to the committee. He has undertaken a series of international initiatives which have been completely successful and important to our country. I just want him to know how much I personally appreciate his work and efforts and his tireless energy, especially in the area of human rights and protecting Americans internationally.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from New Mexico [Mr. Richardson]. (Mr. RICHARDSON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I rise in support of the conference report on H.R. 3259. At the outset I want to commend the gentleman from Texas, Chairman Combest, for the effort he has devoted to bringing this legislation back to the House. I also want to join him in complimenting our staff. I think the staff of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is extraordinarily professional and effective and does a very good job for this institution. The intelligence authorization had relatively smooth sailing in the House last May, but its passage through the Senate was difficult, to say the least. On more than one occasion it appeared likely that there would be no authorization bill for intelligence programs and activities in fiscal year 1997. In my judgment, that result would have been bad for the congressional oversight process and bad for the intelligence agencies. Chairman Combest's persistence and his willingness to compromise when it was necessary, without sacrificing the essence of the positions taken by the House, contributed immeasurably to our having reached this point in the legislative process. The conference report contains an overall authorization level which is 2.3 percent above the amount requested by President Clinton in part because a significant amount recently requested by the administration for counterterrorism activities is included. Even with this initiative, the conference report is 1.5 percent below the level approved by the House in May. I believe the increase above the request is justifiable given the costs inherent in many sophisticated intelligence collection systems, and the absolute necessity of ensuring that our policymakers and military commanders have access to the most comprehensive, reliable, and timely information possible on which to base their decisions and actions. Intelligence is expensive, but the cost of not having information about threats to our national security is incalculable. The Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence devoted a great deal of time in this Congress to the questions of how the intelligence community should be structured for the next century. In that endeavor the committee was joined not only by its Senate counterpart but by the Aspin-Brown Commission, on which I served, and several other groups. Out of these efforts emerged many thought-provoking ideas, some of which deserve further consideration. What did not emerge, however, was a consensus on the question of whether or not the community needed fundamental organizational change. There was simply no showing and certainly no conclusion by executive branch officials that the current structure hinders the effective conduct of intelligence activities. The relationship between the Secretary of Defense and the Director of Central Intelligence on intelligence matters, particularly the intelligence budget, is key to the management of the intelligence community. Currently that relationship works. In the absence of any evidence that it cannot continue to do so, there is simply no impetus for radical change. The conference report does, however, make some changes in the community's structure. Despite my support for the conference agreement, I have reservations about placing additional layers of bureaucracy on the community's organizational charts. It is not all clear what purpose three Assistant Directors of Central Intelligence will serve, nor is it clear what shortcomings in the existing structure they are to remedy. When the reform process began last year, its stated purpose in the House and in the other body was to produce a more streamlined, flexible intelligence community. I am concerned that what we have done, instead, is to create more Senate-confirmed positions whose occupants will spend most of their time searching for something productive to do. Despite these reservations, I intend to support the conference agreement because I believe that, on balance, it makes progress in some technical collection areas in which innovation is necessary. I urge my colleagues to give it their support as well. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, Martin Pang stands accused of deliberately lighting the fire which led to the deaths of four Seattle firefighters. After allegedly committing this act, Pang fled to Brazil, where he was captured by Brazilian authorities. Although the Brazilian Government has allowed the extradition of Pang on charges of arson, Brazilian law and their constitution does not allow him to be extradited on charges of murder--charges for which he can and should be tried under United States law. To charge Martin Pang with murder, a waiver must be granted from the Brazilian Government. I would like to thank the gentlelady from Washington for introducing this legislation, which expresses to the Government of Brazil just how important this case is to the United States Congress and to the people of Washington State. I am hopeful that our efforts today, along with continued work by myself, the gentlelady, and the Justice Department, will lead to an agreement with the Brazilian Government which will allow justice to finally be done on behalf of the four firefighters and their families who were the victims of this terrible crime.

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, this morning instead of attending a meeting he had requested with the director of Central Intelligence to discuss activities to combat terrorism, the Speaker of the House chose to make some comments which served no purpose other than to undercut bipartisan efforts to pass a meaningful counterterrorism bill. To suggest that our ability to collect human intelligence on terrorists and terrorist organizations had been undermined by the Clinton administration is simply not correct. Perhaps the Speaker, an ex officio member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, should reread the committee's report on the fiscal year 1996 intelligence authorization bill. The report stated, ``Overall, the Committee believes that the work of the U.S. intelligence agencies against terrorism has been an example of effective coordination and information sharing.'' The report also noted, ``The Committee, in its mark, has provided added support to the Intelligence Community programs focused on the terrorist threat.'' The recent report of the Aspin-Brown commission on intelligence also stated, ``U.S. intelligence has played key roles in helping other countries identify and/or arrest several notorious terrorists, including Carlos the Jackal in Sudan, the alleged ringleader of the World Trade Center bombing, in the Philippines, the head of the Shining Path terrorist group in Peru, and those involved in the bombing of Pan Am 103.''

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, I rarely take the floor on issues of this kind, but I wanted to just say something today about the concerns that the Speaker has made today about this administration and its dealing with the question of terrorism. First of all, I have served on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence for years, been on the defense subcommittee for many years. There has always been a bipartisan effort to support the Directorate of Operations. I am very disappointed that the Speaker today refused to meet with John Deutch, after having summoned him to the Capitol. He was able to meet with the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Gephardt, and with Mr.. Daschle, and he gave us a very wide-ranging description of what we are doing around the world on the issue of antiterrorism. Then the Speaker puts out a statement, a statement which I think is utterly false: We are going to ask this administration to report to us when we get back in September on how they are going to work with us to rebuild the human intelligence capabilities of the Central Intelligence Agency, which they have undermined and they have crippled, for we lack precisely the people we need to penetrate terrorist organizations and understand what is going on, and we going to insist on rebuilding this country's intelligence capabilities around the world, despite the Clinton administration. The last thing we need, Mr. Speaker, is to politicize this issue. The best politics on national security matters and matters of importance like this is no politics. I am very disappointed that there is an effort here on the last day of this session, before our recess, to try and politicize this terrorism bill. We need to work together on a bipartisan basis to make certain we have a strong Directorate of Operations. For the Speaker to say this, when it is utterly false, in my judgment, is an undercut. It undercuts the entire Central Intelligence Agency, undercuts the FBI, and is the wrong way to proceed.

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, today I had the pleasure of attending the 25th anniversary of the Youth Conservation Corps, a program that was created in 1970 with the leadership of Congressman Lloyd Meeds and a former Senator from the State of Washington who served in the other body, Senator Henry M. Jackson. This is a program that employs several thousand people each summer working on our national parks, our wildlife refuges in order to do work and maintenance in those areas. It is modeled on the very successful Civilian Conservation Corps of the Roosevelt administration, and I had a chance to see these young workers today doing work on the C&O Canal and to hear their stories about their involvement, and again I think it emphasizes how important it is for us in this Congress to support programs like the YCC, and I believe that the taxpayers get a good return and young people get an opportunity to serve the country and work on important environmental projects.

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I rise to bring to my colleagues' attention an issue that is of great interest to the citizens of the State of Washington, that of the Hanford Thyroid Morbidity Study. The Hanford Thyroid Study is the first study of its kind and will determine the long-term thyroid disease effects, if any, of the releases of radioactivity from the Hanford nuclear site from 1949 to 1957. Over the course of the past 7 years, this study has been jointly funded by the Center for Disease Control and the Department of Energy. Due to be completed in 1998, this study is an excellent example of two Federal agencies--the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Energy--working together in the interest of the American people. By the end of fiscal year 1996, the Department of Health and Human Services will have spent a total of approximately $12 million and the Department of Energy will have spent $3.4 million since 1989. A combined $4,600,000 is necessary in fiscal year 1997 from HHS and DOE and a total of $2,700,000 would be necessary from these departments in 1998 to complete the project. I am sure that my colleagues will agree that completion of this project is of paramount importance and necessary to bring 7 years of research data already collected to its natural conclusion. I was pleased to assist the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, the contractor on the study, in 1995 when administrative delays threatened the release of funds under the DOE-HHS Memorandum of Understanding. We were successful in obtaining the release of the funds from the DOE. I am confident that we can keep this project on track in 1997.

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing the Healthy Families Act, a bill to help prevent child abuse. A 1994 survey of child welfare agencies reported more than 3 million cases of child abuse. Three children a day died. My bill will make Justice Department funding available for local programs following the principles of the healthy families initiative, a pioneering child abuse prevention program. Communities adopting the healthy families model use their existing social service network to provide voluntary, culturally appropriate, intensive in-home visits to new mothers and their families by professional counselors to teach them how to avoid child abuse. The counseling which healthy families provides those families who want help with the training and discipline needed to prevent child abuse are important for our children. Because of the success of this program in Hawaii, Mr. Speaker, the healthy families approach has been adopted by communities across the country. Earlier this year I visited a program site in the Washington State district, which I represent. The effort to prevent child abuse that I saw during my visit encouraged me to introduce this legislation.

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, the decision that Congress will make today with regard to most-favored-nation status represents an important step in defining our future trading relationship with China. We are deciding today whether or not the United States will continue what I believe has been a constructive policy that encourages change with China while firmly expressing United States concern about human rights, protection of our intellectual property, and our desire to curb nuclear proliferation. For the largest private employer in my State, the Boeing Co., renewing MFN with China is absolutely critical. In the period between 1992 and 1994, Boeing recorded $5.3 billion in sales to China, representing one of the largest single positive influences in improving our balance of trade. In fact, one in every ten commercial jetliners made by the Boeing Co. during this period was sold to a customer in China. These jet sales supported 48,500 jobs in the United States for each of these years. The jobs I am speaking of are not just at Boeing facilities, but at 4,500 commercial suppliers. That is why we should continue to support MFN.

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DICKS. This is one thing I think that is widely misunderstood. People talk about the fact when you do a salvage sale and you have these dead trees laying there, well, they took some green trees. What they forget is that the bug infestation has gone from the dead trees into the surrounding green trees. So, some of those have to be taken in order to stop the infestation from spreading further. It is not because they are trying to undermine the environmental laws or doing something awful. It is because of honorable silvicultural practices.

Mr. DICKS. Reserving the right to object, Mr. Chairman, can the gentleman explain to me what is going to happen here? This is on the NEA amendment?

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield to me?

Mr. DICKS. I just want to clarify a couple things about the amendment. Is it the intent of the sponsors of this amendment that it would affect only timber salvage sales that would be offered after October 1, 1996? In other words, it is not going back retroactively?

Mr. DICKS. Is it the sponsor's understanding that the so-called section 318 sales authority would expire on September 30, 1996?

Mr. DICKS. Is it also true that the salvage provision enacted last year would expire on December 31, 1996, but for your amendment?

Mr. DICKS. Is it the sponsor's understanding that salvage sales offered under her amendment after October 1, 1996, would be conducted under all existing environmental law?